Opinion
Saturday 15: TV coverage a team effort
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, Thank you for your kind comments (William Framhein). Just to clarify, we are currently showing two games a day on CITV with the permission of IFNA. The 5.30pm game is shot with one camera (Pete or Matt) and has one commentator (Mona). The 9.30pm game has a team of eight people: three camera […]
Monday 17: WHAT'S IT ALLS WORTH?
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
“The Cook Islands is at risk of going morally insane,” a reader says. “Our Audit Office seems to do a great job of uncovering corruption, exposing abuse of power and authority, revealing dishonesty, but what’s the point if there are no penalties or repercussions? It’s all very well to be vigilant and sharp in auditing […]
Wednesday 19: Phonetic links
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, Just a quick note with regard to the life long desire of all Maori to find the “Makea” title holder. The phonetics of the Maori language provide keys to family names and traditions. When we in our language know the oral tradition and importance of spacing in a personable way as well as […]
Saturday 15: Angels' touch
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, With surprise I read about the outbreak of prisoners because of bad facilities and bad treatment. That is not the Polynesian Rarotongan way to deal with humans. There is a prison specialist on the island with 40 years of experience, Mr Gordon Sawtell, and I am sure he will be happy to help. […]
Monday 17: SMOKO TIME
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
You know the wind’s cold in Raro when otherwise tough tradesmen huddle in the sun on the sheltered side of a building under construction on the beachfront, none wanting to venture around the corner and get chilled and sandblasted on the windward side. So the job takes a bit longer than normal.
Wednesday 19: Let's get rid of them!
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, I would like to congratulate my Cook Islands people for standing up and giving it to Government et al for their arrogance in appointing some young highly qualified people to HOM jobs. You are true Cook Islanders. I agree entirely with you, these new HOMs are too young and too highly qualified and […]
Saturday 15: PSC answers criticism
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, After reading some of the concerns voiced in the media over the appointment process for Heads of Departments and Island Secretaries, it is very important that this is clarified as a matter of public interest There were a total of 198 applications, 60 for the secretaries and 138 for HODs. These applications were […]
Monday 17: PAPA SLOW DOWN!
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
One signaller urges the ol’ fella who was driving a blue single cab pick-up truck last Thursday morning from Upper Tupapa way towards town, to “please put some sense in your head and understand that every day it’s an early morning rush hour for most of us with a job, and your careless driving is […]
Wednesday 19: Call for a prison's board
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, In my letter of August 17 I indicated that I would write another article outlining a remedial measure to improve the prison service. The prison service is charged with the containment of offenders sentenced to terms of imprisonment as well as offenders awaiting trial. Basically these offenders who have committed offences against the […]
Saturday 15: Leading by example – yeah right
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, The admission by the Finsec (CINews August 14) that he had applied direct to his uncle the Minister of Finance for a bonus of the full amount has proved beyond any doubt the self interest and conniving that is going on with the minister and his pet appointees. If the Finsec had any […]
Monday 17: REEF INSPECTOR
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
A visitor to Rarotonga who received numerous coral cuts when he made the mistake – possibly after a few drinks – of paddling into waves crashing on to the reef on the island’s western side last week, reportedly had one request to make when his rescuers brought him to safety on the beach, a cold […]
Wednesday 19: Highest paid should be last for a rise
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, Probably like every other tax paying individual in this country, I am appalled and disgusted that the country’s financial secretary Sholan Ivaiti has the nerve to seek a 5% increase to his salary for ‘outstanding’ work which he believes he has achieved over the past year. At a time when the economy has […]
Saturday 15: Endless stuff-ups speak
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, We read with disgust that Sholan Ivaiti is trying to get a bonus pay. What for? He is already highly paid for a start, and most of the things he has done since he started working have been a total failure. Like most of the current HoMs, his appointment was clearly political. We […]
Monday 17: Invisible partitions?
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
A smoke signaller after watching a ‘Tuatua with Tua’ episode was curious about the lack of cubicles in the Sports Arena’s VIP bathrooms. “One wonders how the VIPs from our country and other countries would feel about doing their business in sight of every other VIP! And since when did the Cook Islands consider red […]
Tuesday 18: We were fleeced!
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, The Cooks’ prosperity is based on tourism – and rightly so. You have it all. Four of us from New Zealand spent a glorious last week of July in Rarotonga and Aitutaki. And here’s how to kill the goose and its golden eggs. Take tourists for a ride by charging them $55 departure […]
Friday 14: Top job!
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, I write to you on behalf of the team at Matariki FM to ask if you would publish our gratitude of the great TV presentation that Jeanne Matenga, Moana Vaevae and others are doing of the WYNC as seen on Cook Islands Television. Jeanne is the sole CITV camera person and Moana the […]
Thursday 13: SHINY COSTUMES
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
Responding to the smokie about Te Hiva Nui girls temporarily mislaying their coconut bras for their shows in England, a reader recalls when Papua New Guinea hosted the 1980 Festival of Pacific Arts, the female dancers in the teams from the Cook Islands and Tahiti were sometimes playfully described in Tok Pisin (Pidgin English) as […]
Tuesday 18: Snacks were to ease tension
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, I write to provide clarification about the escaped prisoners, as requested by a letter writer in yesterday’s newspaper. I was contacted by the police saying the escapees wanted to give themselves up. The escapees noted that they would only talk to me as the Secretary of Justice or their former legal adviser Tony […]
Friday 14: It's fallacious, fraudulent
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Letters to the Editor
Dear Editor, The shenanigans of the recently appointment of the HOMs are fallacious and, we believe, fraudulent. The whole of cabinet ought to be audited and charged if this can be proven to be fraud because what they did was not good governance and transparency as per their political party manifesto. Their selections were purely […]
Thursday 13: WANTING TICKETS
Wednesday 19 August 2009 | Published in Smoke Signals
A reader reports a “perplexing experience” at the opening of the World Youth Netball champs while trying to buy tickets for matches for subsequent days, but was told none would be on sale till at least Wednesday. “How bizarre when those wanting tickets are right there and the MC kept promoting other matches all afternoon.”
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